EPA Issues Letter of Congratulations for Biochar Project

On March 4, the international Commission for Environmental Cooperation awarded an $85,000 grant to Climate Foundation and the Re-Locate project to work with the Tribal and City Councils of Kivalina, Alaska, to develop a shovel ready project to provide biochar sanitation to the village.

The project received a letter of congratulations from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Ms. Gina McCarthy, on being chosen as a recipient of the 2013-15 North American Partnership on Environmental Community Action grant for the biochar project.

In her letter, Ms. McCarthy wrote: “Your work to improve sanitation for Arctic villages across North America will strengthen communities and complement efforts under way at the EPA. The EPA is proud to support The Climate Foundation as you address environmental challenges at the community level.”

“Local relationships, roles, and responsibilities are critical to understand, visualize, and integrate into the design of any new waste management plan,” said Michael Gerace, founder and chief curator of Re-Locate. “Biochar systems and dry toilets play an important role, but the success of the technology depends on its effective integration with and support of the autonomously functioning practices that are operating in the village already.”

Working together with Kivalina, partners will improve upon, engineer, and adapt Biochar Reactor technology developed for sub-Saharan Africa by the Climate Foundation to Arctic conditions. These reactors process human waste into energy, biochar briquettes, and useful raw materials.

The biochar project addresses sanitation as the most critical opportunity to improve public health in Kivalina. Residential homes in Kivalina lack toilets and running water, and people use honey buckets (paint buckets lined with plastic trash bags and covered with portable seats) to store and haul human waste. Located on a barrier island, Kivalina is highly susceptible to erosion and the impacts of climate change, and has had limited investment water and sewer services.

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I find this very interesting especially with application to wide range of extremes from sub-Sahara to the Arctic. Is there success to the initiative that would see permanent usage? Have the people accepted,thus assisting in the usage.?
I live in the south with all conveniences, which are taken for granted. This makes your quest for a toilet stand out out as rather important.

Can you direct me to an up to date report on this bio char toilet project at the town of Kivalina.

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Re-Locate is building artistic and web-based platforms that intend to make the social, political, and environmental issues related to relocation visible to global audiences.
With support from: ArtPlace America; the National Endowment for the Arts; North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action (NAPECA); Alaska Design Forum; First Nations Development Institute; BOKU, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna; Embassy of the United States, Austria; California College of the Arts, Center for Art and Public Life; McCool Carlson Green Architects; mayer sattler-smith architects; The World Justice Project; Wochenklausur; Architects Without Borders Austria; IoA, University of Applied Arts Vienna; Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths University, University of London; Three Degrees Warmer; Department of Anthropology, Simpson Center for Humanities, Canadian Studies Program in the Jackson School of International Studies, Program on Climate Change and Atmospheric Sciences in the College of the Environment, College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington; Seattle University; the City of Vienna, Austria; National Endowment for the Humanities; Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association; Civilization; Creative Time; CoDA; NANA Village Economic Development program; Teck; Lynden Freight; JADE Craftsman Builders; University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab; MapSmith; and Alaska Pacific University.